Thursday, January 5, 2012

Week of November 28th to Dec 2nd

Monday

First period was 1-6 and it was fun. Yuka-sensei has this “pointer” thingie from the 100yen shop that’s basically a stick with a squishy cat paw at the top. Both the kids and I LOVE the cat paw and always want to play with it… in fact, Fumiya and I have really bonded over our love of the cat paw… Fumiya is this really fat, jolly kid who now sits in the first row. So, most of the class was spent with me waving the cat paw at him, and him trying to grab it. lol.

In 2-4 Masaya was being a horrible little shit again… although there was that one funny moment where I made big eyes at him and he went “hey, are you wearing color contacts?” and it just made me laugh because, with the amount of staring at me that he does, you would think he’d have realized by now my eyes are actually blue…

In class with 3-1, Minoru (who is a really diligent kid, really good at English) and Seiya (who is a brat who cares more about his hair than anything else – especially English) were swapping this little paper around, writing notes to each other. When I tried to grab for it, they of course wouldn’t let me, but I managed to see that they were writing questions to each other… in English!!! Minoru had written “do you have a girlfriend?” and Seiya answered “yes, I do”. lol. WTF?!! Well, I guess they were practicing English in a way that was more entertaining to them, but still, I was kinda baffled. More baffling even is that they kept at it for pretty much the whole class. The rest of the class involved me and Minami talking about the Korean drama “You’re Beautiful”; explaining to the boy in front of her (to his great interest) how you made “sculpt” gel nails; and telling Yuta that I was 18 and having him believe me. lol. I told him that I was a genius and had gone straight from elementary school to university and he was like “really?” lol. When he realized we were making fun of him he went “me too, me too. I didn’t go to high school or junior high school” and the other kid laughed at him in Japanese going “then what are you doing here?!” Fun times. The mood of the classroom was really good and genki, but they were pretty much all doing anything but the work they were supposed to be doing. Oh well!

Tuesday

Today I had 1-7 first period, and it felt like I hadn’t seen them in ages and they were like “Vanessa, yaaaay!!” when I walked in which was sweet. They were super genki the whole time… Oh! One funny thing that happened was that, we were doing possessives today, and they had to ask each other “do you have XX’s bag?” or similar questions, and there is this kid whose name is “Shu” and so when his group realized that saying “Shu’s” sounded like “shoes”, that’s ALL they were asking for the whole duration of the game. “Do you have Shu-zuuuu bag? hat? car?” and then they would all break into fits of giggles. Cuteness.

Then I had regular English with 3-5, and it was kinda funny cuz Kazuma was NOT sleeping. He had his head on the desk, and TRIED to sleep, but he would always go back and open his eyes and just look around at whatever was going on. It cracked me up because obviously he is trying to stick to his bad boy image or “I don’t give a shit”, but he was super awake. Just sit up, kid. I even went to talk to him for a bit and he was all chipper (even though he kept making the girl next to him translate for him) and then he played the game earnestly with Ryohei afterwards *shakes head* Oh and, I also noticed that the girl who looks like Angela Aki (forgot her name, bad me) is dating the boy next to her (tall lanky kid called Shusuke. Smart kid too) because she had purikura of the two of them stuck to her pencilcase… Awww, cute. But seriously, what’s with all these 3rd grader couples of kids who are sitting next to each other?? That’s 3 now! (That I know of…)

Aaaaaaaand, I guess that’s it. I had 3-2 and 2-6 scheduled, but as usual, Mizushima-sensei cancelled his classes with me, and surprisingly, so did Hasegawa sensei. Apparently, those big regional tests we’re having on Thursday have everyone freaking out. I was a bit bummed to miss my weekly class with 3-2, but oh well…

Wednesday

First period was 1-1 and they were their usual genki selves. There is this one tiny little boy called Fumiya in that class, who showed up to school this morning wearing a snow hat. Now I know that, this being Japan and all, there is NO WAY that the teachers would let him wander around with a hat on just because he was cold, so I figured something must be seriously wrong. So I asked Aoshima-sensei and he told me the kid had surgery for a brain tumor!! And of course his hair fell off cuz of chemo or some other treatment… but apparently now he’s fine :/ Poor baby! Well, he seemed genki enough during class… When we were playing the game, he kept wandering round and round the classroom, and when I assigned him to this group of boys, he refused to play with them, and kept wandering, til I realized he just wanted to be with his friends who were in another (already complete) group, so I was like “ok, fine, you guys can be 6!” and he seemed pretty chipper. There was another girl I tried to put in another group who were only 4, and she completely refused to move and just sat there the whole time. Actually, she always does that, she’s like a freakin’ zombie and never does anything and whenever they play group games I always have to go coax something out of her cuz she completely kills the mood of whatever group she’s in… I mean, I get being an outcast and all, but you could at least TRY. I really have no pity for her at all because it seems to me that she puts herself in this situation. The kids in this class are actually really sweet and warm, and when we do have group things, they usually try to include her and coax her to play along and she just does nothing. Big fail.

Damn, what is it today with kids who don’t wanna play?! There was another shy girl in 1-3 who refused to go into a group. I suggested her two different groups of girls to go with. Even asked one “is it ok if she plays with you” and they nodded yes, and I pushed her over – like physically, with my hands to her back – and she just planted her feet on the ground and refused to move, staring blankly into space. She didn’t even go back to her seat to sit, she just stood there in that one spot for the entire time. Even Aoshima-sensei tried to get her to go, a bit later, but to no avail. Seriously. The rest of them enjoyed the game pretty well, with one usual group of boys waaaaay more eager than the rest, who played like 3 times to everybody’s 1… my little Dinosaur boy seemed a bit out of it though, he was kinda just wandering around.

Oh and btw, on my way back from 1-1 in the morning, I ran into Taisei (3-6) who just randomly started blabbering at me in Japanese “It’s cold… it’s really cold” (I agreed, but actually today is super hot… like almost 20C) followed by “my stomach aches, I don’t feel well…” and he just kept blathering on as he went up the stairs… lol. It was sooo random. haha. I guess he’s sick cuz that’s really kinda out of character for him.

Thursday

Teeeeeests!

Friday

I guess that I forgot to write anything for that day…

Ooooh, I remember! I had 4 classes back to back in the morning that day, and I was gonna leave early in the afternoon cuz I was going to Tokyo for the weekend, and then, in the staffroom around 1:45pm… like seriously 10 MINUTES before I was gonna leave… Aoshima-sensei comes running up to my desk – panting – and goes “Vanessa, we have class now. Today is B week” and I’m like “what?!?!” all panicky. I was not a happy camper. first of all, I’d already had classes all morning with no breaks (which if you don’t know, is really tiring… most “real” teachers never have anything like that on their schedule…), second of all, I’m just a lowly ALT so you would *think* that if I didn’t show up, the teacher would either be glad, or just let it slide and tell me after. but no, there he was standing in front of me, and ushering me back to class. I was also REALLY pissed off mostly because going to class meant I would leave school a good 30 minutes after I had planned, and alter all my plans and make me have to rush to catch the bus in time. Thanks Aoshima-sensei!! :(

anyhoo… I ended up making the bus on time and having a wonderful weekend in Tokyo, so I guess all is forgiven… :p

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hello there!

honestly, i really should have started this blog ages ago... after over 2 years in Japan, there is really no excuse, and so many missed opportunities! I basically started this blog because, on a daily basis, the things that come out of my students' mouths never fail to amaze me. and whether it's cuz they make me laugh like crazy, shake my head in wonder, or feel like a proud mama hen, i always wanna rush and tell someone, but apparently nobody (on my facebook) cares, so maybe you will. ^_- yoroshiku ne!